It's been doing this every day. The clouds build up at the foothills then spill of their own weight as they approach and pass overhead, you can actually observe this happening, usually dissipating completely before the clouds reach the city. Then the clouds pass by as they rebuild at the foothills with patches of bright light between. Sometimes making another pass. It is awesome. The previous two days it actually did rain, but not all that much.
People go about their business, in and out, back and forth, as if nothing extraordinary is happening. We laugh at umbrellas. People bring them then stand in the rain. I saw this at the memorial reception last week. (I also saw someone begin video recording using their phone in portrait, so I checked them. How's that for intervention, eh?) Oh well, that's Denver for you. The common phrase around here is, "Don't like the weather? Wait a few minutes."
Look how hopelessly confused this is. Numerically, the situation is incalculable. The numbers are all over the map. Given any national weather map the isobars for high areas / low areas, storms, temperature changes, pressure changes, what have you, all converge smack on top of Denver. Any seed package displaying zones will have color bars converge right at Denver. I can never make head or tails of them. I honestly do not know what zone I live in. And neither does anyone else.
And I keep looking too. Last night for example, I could not make sense of the map provided by USDA misc 1475 in Pamela Crawford's book. The color key provided is useless to me. Denver sits in a yellow dot within another dot inside a larger dot inside a bulge that juts from an arm that dips down from the regular broad yellow band.
That tells you when it comes to plants, do whatever you wish. You will have your own little microclimate somehow depending on your precise situation, your protection of terrain, of vegetation, of fences, other buildings, what have you.
Or else it means expect extremes and never count on anything actually growing.
